Ladybird/Butterfly Food

At my favourite garden centre they had packets of Ladybird & butterfly food, which I bought.

The Ladybird one is easy to work out, just smear where you want the ladybirds.

The butterfly one is slightly different, what I want to know is what is a butterfly feeder?
Can I make one?
It also says a sponge, but is that a real one or a synthetic one.
Also when the very expensive packet runs out can I make a food myself.
Pol

Ladybird food? You want to put ladybird food on your plants? We're always trying to remove ladybird food from our plants (and hoping the ladybird beetles and their larva will do that for us).

I wonder what they might be selling you as ladybird food. The ladybird beetles we have around here whether in the adult stage of the larval stage eat aphids (other species feed on other prey, but ladybird beetles are predators. At least all the species I know are predators).

It`s just to encourage the ladybirds to were the aphids will be Mike.
Pol

Nectar feeders...sugar /water solution in a inverted jar with holes in the lid..hung up so bees and butterflies can feed off it....

Thank you

Had another visit to my favourite garden centre with some pressy money, so I bought myself a butterfly feeder.

I also got so many new seeds that I think I need a club for seed addiction. There seems to be a lot of new seeds around this year, so I had a field day. But it was fun.

We're putting out Butterfly Weed again this year. Sometimes get's too cold for it to overwinter, even with self seeding. They also love our flowering woody bushes too, lilac, forsythia, etc.

What is what you call Butterfly Weed, Mr S? Not heard of that name....

mr_sfstk8d wrote:We're putting out Butterfly Weed again this year. Sometimes get's too cold for it to overwinter, even with self seeding. They also love our flowering woody bushes too, lilac, forsythia, etc.

Since "bee balm" (monarda) is both hardy enough to survive here plus a prolific self seeder I would think that would work where you are. And besides, a mass of monadra is very pretty in bloom, especially if you have adjacenmt masses with some difference in color (there isn't a wide range available, but some).

Our "lawn" looks a mess/jungle since Penny allows/encourages "milkweed" (very large). This is the breeding food for the monarch butterfly. And why they are inedible --- a chemical in the milkweed sap becomes incorporated into their bodies -- I say inedible rather than unpalatable because apparently so awful tasting that a bird ever having eaten one will starve before downing anything resembling a monarch -- this is the protection the smaller viceroy butterfly evolved; resemblence to the monarch.

And for us milkweed is an "edible weed" (the young tips in Spring don't contain the nasty "milk")

Oh yes, milkweed. That's the other one we have quite a bit of as well. And yes, we love watching the Monarchs in the yard.

I've just put in some from seed packet, so I'll see if the proper name is on the package... Asclepias tuberosa, a bit different but related to milkweed.